Infectious Diseases Society of Pakistan organized a one day seminar on “Surveillance of Nosocomial Infections and Outbreak Investigation” on February 28, 2009 at The Indus Hospital Karachi. Thirty health care professionals attended this meeting. Dr. Altaf Ahmed (President IDSP and Director of Laboratory Services, Indus Hospital) delivered the welcome address and highlighted the importance and need of surveillance in hospital practice.

Lecture on Transmission Dynamics of infectious diseases in hospital environment was delivered by Dr Fatima Noman, Microbiologist at Liaquat National Hospital Karachi. Second lecture was on ‘Risk Factors for Acquiring VAP, Central Venous Line Infection, and Urinary Tract Infection’ was delivered by Dr Seema Irfan, Assistant Professor, Department of Pathology and Microbiology, AKUH. Dr. Afia Zafar, General Secretary, IDSP and Associate Professor, from the same institute talked on ‘Surveillance for Nosocomial Infections (definitions, data collection, analysis and interpretation).’ Dr. Rehana Siddiqui, Assistant Professor, Department of Community Health Sciences, AKU was the last speaker. She delivered a very illustrative and informative talk on ‘Investigation of Outbreak of Nosocomial Infection in Hospital Setting.’ A lively discussion and question and answer session was followed after this session.

In the afternoon participants were divided into four groups and were given different outbreak scenario to work on. In the final session all incidents were presented by each group and were discussed. In the end, Dr Rehana Siddiqui was requested to distribute the certificate and Dr. Altaf Ahmed was asked for the vote of thanks.